


not-so-secret

by moth_writes



Series: smiling fate [28]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28271229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth_writes/pseuds/moth_writes
Summary: There's a secret santa at Watford, and Baz takes his chance.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: smiling fate [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026844
Comments: 1
Kudos: 63
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2020





	not-so-secret

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the Carry On Countdown Day 29: Gift Giving/Secret Santa

12

BAZ

This is perfect.

Watford is doing a secret santa this year. Student initiative-Trixie Pixie organized it with her girlfriend. School wide, but separated by year.

And it’s perfect.

I can spoil Snow from afar. It’s our last year, and this will be my last chance to. I have to take it.

Fiona picks me up the first week of December. She always does-we back a weekend of it, buying gifts and ordering in from six different places. I’m too busy revising the rest of the month, and this is our solution.

It works better, too. I’m not half-dead (three-fourths dead?) when I’m buying presents, so I make better choices. (Once, in fifth year, I was so tired between Snow following me and revising I accidentally bought Daphne four of the same kettles and a scarf she already had, and I didn’t realize until she opened them.)(It was a sight-her opening a kettle, then a kettle, then a kettle, then a scarf. She’d thought she was done, and when she opened the final kettle the children about died laughing.)   
  
(I maintain that it’s Fiona’s fault for letting me pick presents half-asleep, and for insisting on wrapping them herself so I wouldn’t realize the mistake.)

We go to twelve different stores before I have everything. My siblings’ gifts, wrapped at the store, are tucked into the back of Fiona’s car where they’ll stay until she picks me up for break. I hold my final gift for Snow in my lap-it’s too fragile to leave unattended-and watch the rest where they’re stacked in the backseat.

Fiona laughed when I spelled them down. I don’t care.

When we get back to school, I hide them under my bed. Snow’s long learned I don’t keep anything aside from my suitcase under there, and he’s stopped bothering to look. 

He’s still out doing whatever he does, so I sit down to plan. Plot.

I didn’t sign up for the secret santa, but Snow did. He’ll assume the gifts are from that, and I get double benefits-I can drown him in gifts, and torment him with wondering who they’re from.

I spend the weeks until break watching Snow. It’s driving him crazy. He’s watching me, too, but I don’t care as much now. I’m too excited.

I’m staying over break this year. Daphne says politics aren’t good for Father-he’s never been very good at them, my mother always handled all of it-and they’re going on holiday to Spain.

The Pitches have a house there, and Daphne and Fiona are unexpectedly close. My aunt has agreed to lend them the property for a couple weeks on the condition that she gets photos of the children everyday. (Fi likes to pretend she’s tough, but she loves my siblings too.)

The days go slowly. Exams come, and I pass all of mine with flying colors-of course-and then it’s the last day of school.

Bunce and Wellbelove leave. I half thought Snow would want to go with one of them, but he and Wellbelove broke up the first week back and the Bunce’s house is already stuffed to bursting. 

Our last day of school is the eighteenth, exactly a week before Christmas. I leave the package outside the door when I go to hunt-Snow won’t see it until he gets back from dinner, and any trace of me will be long gone by then.

I return early. Just this once, I tell myself, or he’ll get suspicious. (He’ll get suspicious anyway.)(Snow is eternally convinced I’m plotting something.)   
  
(Well. I suppose it’s warranted, now. I  _ am  _ plotting something. Just not the way he thinks.)

I want to see him open it. I want to see his reaction. Just this once I’ll give myself that.

I get to the room with just enough time to settle at my desk and pretend to be reading when Snow walks in.

He’s holding the package. It looks so delicate in his rough hands, and for a moment I worry he’ll break it.

“What’s that, Snow?” I drawl in as condescending a tone I can manage. I make sure to sound just a little curious as well, to throw Snow off the track.

“I don’t know,” he says, and for a moment he forgets he hates me. “It was outside the door.”

“Are you sure it’s for you then, Snow?” I ask. I know it is. His name is written in loopy letters on the outside. (Mine, after a transformation spell to hide my handwriting.) “If it was outside the door, it could be one of my multitude of secret admirers.”

He scowls at me, as I knew he would, and turns it to show me his name. I nod and we both look at the gift.

It’s wrapped in blue paper covered with snowflakes. (It reminded me of him.)(Fiona called me a sap.) There’s a ribbon tied around it, and Snow plays with it absently.

“Well,” I say slowly and raise an eyebrow when Snow looks at me. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

“Could be dangerous,” he mutters. “Humdrum, maybe. Student doing its work.” He looks at me with narrowed eyes.

“The wards would have stopped you from bringing it in,” I point out. Another of the Mage’s pet projects-anything brought onto school grounds with ill intent is expelled forcefully. It doesn’t always work, as shown by the fact that he’s had them up for years and I still managed to bring dangerous items in. Snow’s numerous poisonings don’t help, either.

“Right,” he mumbles. He’s focused on the package with some strange, wary light in his dull blue eyes. I watch his face as he takes the wrapping paper off-carefully, without tearing it. It’s the exact opposite of what I thought he’d do.

He pries the lid off and sets it and the paper on his desk. I watch his face pinch into some odd look I’ve never seen before when he pulls the gloves out.

They’re nice gloves. Warm, with leather grips for his sword. Enchanted, too, to stay the perfect temperature-hot when it’s cold and cool when it’s hot. I made Fiona help me embed protection spells in them to protect Snow’s skin. (His palms have rough, scrape-and-burn patches reaching down his wrists for the dragon.)

He’s just standing there, staring at them. I clear my throat and he looks up, blinking hard.

I hesitate, then say as softly as I dare “Alright, Snow?”

He nods hastily and rubs his thumb over the leather. “Yeah. Just...I don’t think anyone’s ever given me anything so...like this. I just…” he trails off, looking at me. His eyes are so blue.

“Yes,” I say quietly. I hold out a hand and watch Snow look at it. “The gloves, Snow. I have experience with enchanted equipment, I can tell you more about them.”

“Oh.” He grips the gloves tighter and watches me warily. “You won’t do anything to them?”

“No, Snow,” I tell him. He sets the gloves in my palm, and I ignore the heat that flares in my chest. (I wish I could pass it off as indigestion.)(I can’t. I know too much to fool myself-lie to myself-like that.)

I pretend to inspect them, running my fingers over the cuffs and watching how Snow twitches from the corner of my eye. I tell him what I know without making it too specific. 

The ache in my chest increases, and I can’t look at him anymore. I give him back the gloves and turn to my books again.

I try to read, but all I can think about is his voice when he said that and the expression he wore when he opened the box.

…

11

The next gift-a box of tea I thought he’d like-goes much the same way.

He accepts it much quicker, and he spends less time touching it. Instead he sets it on his desk and stares from his bed.

He proposes a truce during the break that night. 

I don’t know what this means.

…

10

There are a few days that are just food or clothes, because Snow doesn’t do much other than fight and eat. Today’s the first of those.

He looks at the boxes of chocolates, and I know he’s thinking that there isn’t a single kind he doesn’t like. (I made sure of it.) He adds the wrapping paper to the growing stack kept more neatly than anything else on his desk.

Snow offers me a chocolate, and it’s the first time he’s tried to share food with me.

It’s the first time I’ve ever ate in front of him-in daylight, anyway.

We don’t mention it.

…

9

Snow pulls on today’s gift, a plush jacket with protection and general warmth spells wove in, on immediately and asks me how it looks.

I have to take a moment to catch my breath before I can tell him it’s fine.

This truce, this friendliness, is going to be the end of me.

…

8

He’s just as careful with the paper as he has been before, and it’s baffling.    
  


I want to ask him why he doesn’t just rip it. Tear into it with the same enthusiasm he uses for most things. Why is he so careful?

I don’t say anything. We aren’t there yet.

Snow, more true to character, rips the box open immediately. I’d been running out of ideas at this point-I did his last, and I was dead tired-and it’s a care package.

There’s a first aid kit, well-stocked, that Snow looks at appraisingly before setting aside. He digs into the chocolate bars and bags of crisps, going to the bottom where I’ve hidden the more material items.

They aren’t anything fancy-a pair of socks with little sticks of butter on them (I couldn’t believe it when I found them.)(I almost bought him six pairs, but Fiona stopped me.) Some over-the-counter pain relievers for when he gets into scraps. Some other things I threw in for no real reason.

Snow offers me a bag of crisps. “Salt and Vinegar,” he says, “your favorite, right?”

I take the bag and Snow gives me a rare smile. I can’t bring myself to return the gesture-it would feel too much like an admission.

That night Snow tells me about the homes. He recounts story after story and my heart aches for him.

That night I tell Snow about my mother. It’s the first time I’ve told anybody anything specific since it happened, and it feels like I’m cutting myself open and setting all the raw, broken parts out for him to look at.

I don’t sleep that night.

…

7

I’m not in the room to see Snow open the gift tonight.

I wanted to, but I thought he’s get suspicious if I happened to be there every night just in time to see. (He’d be suspicious if I breathed in the wrong direction.)(He once accused me of plotting because I dragged myself out of bed four minutes later than usual. 

I get back after dark and Snow is wrapped around the pillow I got him for today. (He uses the school provided one, and it’s dreadfully thin and worn.)

He sits up when I walk in.

That night Simon Snow and I sit across from each other on his bed and talk for hours about nothing at all.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take. It feels too friendly, too domestic for my battered heart.

…

6

I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling.

I don’t remember anything from today.

I don’t remember what I picked for Snow, or anything else.

The only thing I can think of is his mouth, still burning away all rational thoughts hours later.

I look at him, shining gold in the moonlight, and I curse myself for hoping.

…

5

Snow corners me as soon as I return from hunting.

“I know it’s not from the secret santa,” he says after he’s finished (for now) kissing the sense out of me.

“What?” I say. I can’t even be mad at myself for it.

“Gareth got me,” Snow says. I blink.

“Gareth left already,” I point out.    
  


“Yeah,” Snow tells me. “He gave me a pair of socks the day before. Got called home unexpectedly.”

“Who are the presents from, then?” I ask. I’m trying to play dumb, but it’s hard, pinned here under him. He sits back and straddles my waist, and for a moment I mourn the loss of his breath on my face. (I know it’s a strange thing to miss, but it was proof of how close he was and I loves it.)

“You,” he says simply. I stay silent.

“How do you know?” I ask and I can’t make it sound indignant. (It sounds like a confession already.)(I realize too late that I could have denied it.)

“Penny unspelled the handwriting the first day and I knew it was yours.”

I curse myself. I should’ve known. I should’ve been suspicious when Snow didn’t rip into them, when he saved the paper instead of tearing it.

“Oh,” I say. I sound like Snow. I don’t care. “You don’t mind?”

“I like it,” he says and takes my mouth again.

That night I hand him the gift and watch him open it, and he kisses me after.

We spend that night curled together in his bed, and I never want this to end.

…

4   
  


“Here, Snow,” I say as I toss him next gift at him.

“Simon,” he says mock-sternly.

“Simon,” I amend. He smiles and pulls me in for a quick kiss.

“What is it?” he asks. I raise an eyebrow.

“Open it and find out.”

He does, stripping off the paper with the same careful precision as always. He smiles then gasps when he opens the box.

It’s a necklace with a little treasure chest pendant. I made sure the chain was thick enough to not break easily, and Simon loops it around his fingers when he pulls it out.

“The charm opens,” I tell him. “It’s spelled.  _ Bigger on the inside _ . It’ll hold your things. All of them, if you want it to.”

He’s silent, turning the pendant around in his fingers. We don’t speak.

Simon slips the chain over his neck and fastens it. I watch it settle against his chest.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and his smile near breaks me. 

He reaches up again, unclasping the cross. He holds it in his fist and keeps it carefully away from me when he leans in.

Snow stops with his mouth just a few centimeters from mine. “I’m returning this,” he says. “I don’t need it anymore.”

I start to protest but he cuts me off with his mouth against mine. His other hand clasps the back of my neck and I melt into it.

I’m so in love with him. (It hurts.)

…

3

That night Simon sees my fangs for the first time.

I don’t know if I regret it yet.

I think maybe I won’t.

…

2

Simon hands me a small box when I give him his second-to-last gift.

I love it, and him.

…

1

“Happy Christmas,” Simon Snow,  _ my boyfriend _ , whispers into my hair.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i have done nothing but write today
> 
> also this series is officially finished, since my last day will be art!! and google docs counts hyphens as one word, i checked, so the title isnt breaking my theme
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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